Aside from the rushed trial it was a pretty decent episode. Nice twist having Thea be Merlyn's daughter. And Ollie must really care for Felicity. Why else would pump three arrows into Vertigo's chest when one would probably have done the job?

I'm also looking forward to the introduction of Barry Allen in December. I hope the actor doesn't suck!

I feel like they may have intended the trial to be an ongoing subplot through much of the season, and then they changed their minds. Perhaps something else turned into a better storyline, or they realized that a legal focus would be boring? In any case, they wrapped it up in one ep with a rushed cross examination and forced reveal.

I didn't get a clear look at the "evidence" that Laurel showed Moira, but it was on some kind of letterhead. I presume that it wasn't a thank you note from Malcolm to Moira for the evening of hot sex, written on Merlyn Global Group stationary...

Factual evidence to submit in court would be the paternity test showing Thea was Merlyn's child. This would also add some ongoing drama, in that Laurel knows about not just a night of sex, but Thea's true parentage. It means Moira was keeping a deeper, darker secret.

Their father's sordid affairs were apparently well known to the kids so was it worth affecting the court case just because she didn't want her kids to know she had sex 20 years ago? But the paternity of Thea was worth covering up, this is more understandable that Moira would want to keep this secret.

Since Merlyn is officially dead, Thea is actually the heir to his fortune.

I hope the show follows up on these issues and doesn't just sweep them under the rug.

What I want to know is, where did they get that "proof" that Moira slept with Merlyn?

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That's funny. And a good question. Maybe the district attorney slipped into her Manhunter costume and found proof from 18-19 years ago to use in the trial.

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Now that I rewatched it, it makes a bit more sense.

Merlyn would have had the paternity test done.... somehow. Presumably years ago, when Thea was born and he did the math, using his mad Ninja skills to get some of Thea's blood. He passed this on to the DA using his secret connection to the office.

His intent may have been twofold: To take revenge on Moira, and to put his heir in charge of Merlyn Global. We'll have to see about that.

The flaw here is, for the paternity test to stand up in court, there has to be proof that the test actually compared Thea's blood to Malcolm's. What I mean, it's not like Malcolm and Moira went into the clinic with Thea and everyone showed their ID.

All Moira really had to do was state that she had never consented to any test for Thea, this could not possibly be a real test, and where did the DA obtain this document? (Moira would be refusing admission.) The onus is now on the DA to prove the test is real, which he cannot do without revealing that Merlyn is alive.

I remember an episode last season where some dude O.D.ed shortly after leaving Ollie's night club and Lance suspected that Tommy and Ollie were involved in selling Vertigo. Lance subpoenaed their accounting books and LATER THAT SAME DAY, Lance's partner told him that they had found a thousand dollars missing from the books. That is one helluva forensic accountant working for Starling City to find a thousand dollar discrepancy after just a few hours of pouring over their books!

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Yes, I remember that. I suppose we could give them a pass because the club had only been open a few weeks/months and there would be limited journal entries to go over.

I feel like they may have intended the trial to be an ongoing subplot through much of the season, and then they changed their minds. Perhaps something else turned into a better storyline, or they realized that a legal focus would be boring? In any case, they wrapped it up in one ep with a rushed cross examination and forced reveal.

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The show moves a lot of things along pretty quickly. This isn't unusual. If anything, I'd say they took too long.

His intent may have been twofold: To take revenge on Moira, and to put his heir in charge of Merlyn Global. We'll have to see about that.

The flaw here is, for the paternity test to stand up in court, there has to be proof that the test actually compared Thea's blood to Malcolm's. What I mean, it's not like Malcolm and Moira went into the clinic with Thea and everyone showed their ID.

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problem with your theory about an heir to take over Merlyn Global was he already had one (well until the undertaking brought the Glades crashing down).

Malcolm being Thea's father partly explains why Moria in an earlier episode said "Somethings must not be known" to protect the children. I assumed because she knows Oliver is the Arrow. Its possible its both though.

His intent may have been twofold: To take revenge on Moira, and to put his heir in charge of Merlyn Global. We'll have to see about that.

The flaw here is, for the paternity test to stand up in court, there has to be proof that the test actually compared Thea's blood to Malcolm's. What I mean, it's not like Malcolm and Moira went into the clinic with Thea and everyone showed their ID.

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problem with your theory about an heir to take over Merlyn Global was he already had one (well until the undertaking brought the Glades crashing down).

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I don't see the problem. Malcolm brought the information about Thea forward after Tommy died. So after his intended heir died, he releases information about the second heir. What is the problem? It's actually quite logical.

I thought everything outside of the courtroom in this one was good. For one thing there is no way a trial like that would be over so quick. Don't most of those kinds of trials usually take weeks? Also I doubt very much Laurel would be allowed to play that big of a role in the trial given her relationship with the Queen family.

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How dare a show about a vigilante who shoots people with arrows and hardly ever get hit by a bullet despite being shot at dozens of times, and feature supernatural events, not be realistic when it comes to courtroom scenes?!

^^^It's a good question. But in practice, willing suspension of disbelief is not a blank check. People can and will invest the mental effort to pretend that Oliver Queen not only never meets a good shot, but never meets any who just gets lucky with his aim. But after they've spent that much effort, they also can and will feel cheated when a drama asks for willing suspension of disbelief for something so mundane as a trial. Things like this are the story equivalent of the "uncanny valley," sufficiently like the real thing that the subtle imperfections are just creepy and off-putting. The fantastic stuff is more like a straight-forward cartoon.

Another way of putting it, it's like shelling out for a car, then suddenly the salesman demands a little extra for car mats. It can feel insulting. Maybe not rational, but it's so.

What also may not be rational is a writer thinking verisimilitude in the small stuff couldn't possibly be important in helping to sell the big stuff.

^ Yeah, I don't mind if the show is stupid, because I don't expect it to honor my intelligence in the first place. All I ask is that it not contradict itself or tie itself into narrative knots beyond all reason, and that it not bore me.

I'm assuming there won't be any fallout from Merlyn dropping that driver. Maybe he hired the car under an alias or something himself, because "newly acquitted arguable mass murderer's driver gets murdered on the way home" wouldn't look too good in the ol' papers.

Now that The Flash is getting its own pilot rather than a backdoor one, “Episode 20 will just be an episode of Arrow” — which has actually turned out to be a blessing, Kreisberg admitted. “[A backdoor pilot] actually made it a little bit harder because we were going to have to take a right turn [from] where we were in our ongoing story to incorporate that.” Although Barry may no longer be getting his own episode toward the end of the season, viewers will still hear “about what happened to him in the way that you’re hearing now about Star Labs on the periphery, and certainly in terms of Felicity since she has a connection with him,” revealed Berlanti.

Pretty nice show tonight, good pace and action. The more than human element brought in was nice as was Barrys story about the tornado like blur that killed his mom. Zoom anyone?
I can see this guy as Barry but for the Flash well I will need to see the costume to really be sold.
Why is Felicity hotter with glasses than without or is that just me?